


the end comes for us all

by crocustongues



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Brief Mentions of Blood, M/M, body horror maybe, definitely violence and murder because it's fairy tales, here's your fairy tales !!! be careful they bite !!!, i wrote this because the prompts for iwaoi horror week were so. good., it's all incredibly hazy like you're looking at it through a lens made entirely of metaphors, there's a really terrible pun be warned, vaguely shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 18:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12563968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocustongues/pseuds/crocustongues
Summary: fairy tales are no fun if 'happily ever after' lasts forever.





	the end comes for us all

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for iwaoi horror week !!! hjfvkrh i don't know i could've done anything. but i did this.
> 
> have fun happy halloween!!! 
> 
> (the prompt is, of course, fairy tales. but not as you know them)

//

Tooru’s got a headache. It tastes the colour of static, just like the TV left on in the next room, just like the storm clouds brewing outside.

The night is dark and dripping, much like his hunger. 

Familiar faces haunt his nightmares—they know what the end looks like, but Tooru’s forgotten to ask.

Besides, the end comes when it does; he and Hajme will meet it head on, together, like everything they do.

//

Amidst the broken bottle shards and ashtrays, Hajime waits patiently, silently, for the Visitor. A magician with low morals and an even lower price, Hajime had picked the Shadow Man to be his pawn. Bargaining with spirits of the nether realm had been hard, but Hajime had given his word in exchange for this con-man with a charming smile.

“ _Enchanté_ ,” the Shadow Man dips his hat, as does his shadow.

“You know what to do. Don’t disappoint me. Souls eaten are souls lost.” Hajime’s smile is just short of terrifying, and the Shadow quivers under its owner’s feet.

“Of course,” the Shadow man grits out, “Blood and heart and bones. That’s what you want, right?”

Another smile, another moment of silence, and then Hajime leaves. The Shadow Man draws his dagger, his Shadow grows larger.

The Princess had better watch out.

//

The rabbit hole is suddenly too small, and out comes the pocket watch with panicked murmurs of _I’m late, I’m late, oh dear_.

The Hatter can’t find his favourite cup, and the Hare’s shed his teeth. The twins have hacked each other to pieces and the poor white rabbit’s house reeks of rotten meat. 

The Queen of Hearts has lost her heart and the croquet ground is on fire. The Knave of Hearts has his guts strung as strings on the King’s lyre.

In the midst of madness, in the sky, the sinister Cheshire grin of the crescent moon turns into a person and all that could be heard in all of deserted Wonderland is the echo of Tooru’s laughter.

//

__

_Sanguivorous._

An apt descriptor for the two men staring down at the little girl.

Perhaps, in hindsight, having the wolf devour her might have been marginally less painful.

//

The crack of porous bone, not entirely finished forming from wood. A melody.

Thread of fate commands the puppet. How strange it is to not feel marionette strings on oneself while playing God.

_Snip snip_ the scissors dance.

When Hajime leaves, dead crickets carpet the floor, amid long wooden splinters and lies.

//

Easy isn’t a word Tooru comes across in their line of work. But this? _Easy._

He waits patiently for the little man to finish the rules of the game.

_Tell me my name, and I’ll give you anything_. His smile twinkles gold.

_But if you can’t, I’ll eat your soul_. Tooru agrees, smiling in kind.

Except—his smile isn’t golden, it’s red, like blood, like anger, like treachery, like _cruel_.

Like scraped skin and flesh pooling in front of him. Claws and horns in a shadow, but Tooru’s smile isn’t kind.

//

Fanged rumors fly about a cottage in the woods and the child-eating witch-monster who lives in it.

Hajime doesn’t approve of such monikers for himself or his house, but children regard fear with curious eyes.

Stove tops give off a bittersweet scent; congealed, thick skinned film forms over unwashed pots in the sink.

A single eye looks back at him, as if winking. The axe left at the door winks back.

//

There’s a little girl in their house, eating _their_ porridge. How _dare._

Tooru’s hungry and so is Hajime and they simply can’t be bothered to carry out a well thought out murder this minute. So this was the result of a scrambled half-thought. 

“You want to go in as…bears,” Hajime already having half given in because Tooru is nothing if not convincing when he wants to be. 

“ _Bear_ with me Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, something more sinister than a twinkle in his eye, reaching for Hajime’s hand. 

A beat of silence, punctured by the scraping of a spoon against the dish and Hajime sighs. 

“You’re bearing responsibility, alright?” 

The transformation is over in but a second, two figures, bearing claws and manes and hunger. 

//

“No, _no_ , _please!_ ”

Words spoken in panic carry no meaning for Tooru. He whistles, in a way that Hajime describes as obnoxious, as he stuffs the street urchin into the ornate lamp he’d attempted to steal.

“Shut up,” Tooru orders, breaking off mid-tune.

“Please, I’ll—I’ll never steal again, _please_ ,” the boy whimpers. Tooru promptly shuts the lamp on him. _There_ , a genie to grant every wish. He wrinkles his nose as he cleans the sides of the lamp, scrunching his nose at the sudden scent of jasmine and blood.

//

In this dream, Hajime is not alive. In the next, he’s drowning in guilt, giving up oxygen one lungful at a time.

He wakes up to a rain-drenched epiphany, to various degrees of supposings, to the TV static in the next room.

To Tooru asleep in his bed.

Happy endings are counted on one hand, in faltering heartbeats and murmured _I love yous_. Not in forevers, never in forevers.

//

**Author's Note:**

> this was once again a writing exercise my pal and i did because i was so s t u c k on writing and i looked back to my old works and remembered [this other fic i wrote](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11618952) so now it's a thing fight me
> 
> tumblr: @iceandbrimstone  
> twitter: @kirikamis 
> 
> (i would link these but..................................................)


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